


The Days that we can spare

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Christmas Eve, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 18:58:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9002785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: She is so articulate, but he senses words are falling short of her true experience.





	

“You have the most peculiar expression on your face, Mary,” Jed remarked. She was surveying the larger ward, where the men were settled for the night, lanterns lit and placed carefully to spread just enough light so a boy would not wake in the dark and cry for fear. 

“Do I? I suppose I might, I feel, oh! I don’t know how exactly I feel, happy where I oughtn’t be, apprehensive where my faith in the Lord should sustain me, half melancholy, half hopeful,” she said, those dark eyes of hers sincere, trusting where he would not have thought he could ever deserve it from her. 

“Shall you tell me why?” he asked.

“Can’t you guess, Jedediah?” she replied, reaching her hand out to take his. Her palm was callused with honorable work her friends in Boston would not have thought her able to manage and she held his hand firmly, so he could not mistake her meaning. He wished to see her in a firelit parlor, wearing the deep red of a garnet’s heart that would suit her, his pearls at her throat and ears, he wished to see her in the early morning when snow battered the windows and they were snug inside, he wished to see her look up at him from her work, her fingers ink-smudged, her eyes bright with discovery, the equation solved. He wished for all of it but none of it more than this moment.

“How could you feel otherwise? For all there is a War, it is still Christmas Eve, Mary.” So many troubles ahead, so many already behind them—McBurney and Lisette and the Golden Crescent, battles and pain, but there was freedom and justice, the kind affection of fellowship, a generous silence around them, and his dearest love regarding him with her sweet soul in her eyes.

“It is, though I thought it should never come,” she said and he pressed her hand closer, stepped so his shoulder touched her, so she could rest her head there if they were not in a public hall. She knew that he wished it and would not ask; his wish was enough.

“I would make every day Christmas Eve for you, Mary,” he said. He heard the smile in her voice as she answered, how she reminded him of their short past, their exquisite present, their long future.

“You already have.”

**Author's Note:**

> A small ficlet for the prompt: Christmas Eve. Because you should always unwrap at least one present on Christmas Eve.
> 
> Title: Ms. Dickinson.
> 
> Dress in Jed's reverie, for Lafiametta, and let us hope, by Worth.


End file.
